Thomas Breen photo
A newly installed 988 sign on the Ferry Street Bridge.
Three hopeful numbers will be posted atop East Rock Park, in a sign urging those who are considering harming themselves to reach out to a new national suicide-prevention hotline instead.
At Wednesday night’s latest monthly meeting of the Board of Park Commissioners at 720 Edgewood Ave., the commissioners voted unanimously in support of a proposal to install a single “988” sign by the overlook at the summit of East Rock Park.
Lorena Mitchell at Wednesday's parks commission meeting.
That pitch came on Wednesday night from Lorena Mitchell, who is City Hall’s inaugural coordinator of community mental health initiatives.
The city has been working on putting up suicide prevention signs around New Haven. These signs show the number 988, “a new national number that you can call anywhere in the U.S. to be connected to a crisis counselor, 24/7,” Mitchell said. “It’s a confidential service.”
One sign has already been installed on the Ferry Street Bridge. Still more have already been put up or are coming soon to bridges on Grand Avenue, Chapel Street, and Forbes Avenue, among other locations. As September is Suicide Prevention Month, she continued, “we are trying to allocate more resources and just raise awareness about suicide prevention.”
On Wednesday, Mitchell asked the commissioners for permission to install a 988 sign atop East Rock.
The request, Acting Parks & Public Works Director Rebecca Bombero elaborated, is to put such a sign by the overlook at East Rock Park’s summit. “Unfortunately, many times in my career, we’ve had calls for service up at the top of the rock. … It’s one of the key spots in the city” to focus on for suicide prevention.
“Are you asking for temporary signs, or permanent?” Parks Commissioner Harvey Feinberg asked.
Permanent, Mitchell replied. But, she said, the request on Wednesday is just for one single sign to be placed atop East Rock.
What about West Rock Park, too? asked Parks Commissioner Carl Babb.
“West Rock Park is not under the purview of the New Haven Parks Department,” Bombero said. “It’s a state park.” She promised to touch base with her colleagues at the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP).
They should put up these signs on the top of West Rock, the top of Air Rights garage, the top of the Crown St garage, really the top of any tall parking garage in the city, and both sides of the Q Pearl Harbor Memorial bridge, and other locations that have had a history of people who are struggling try to jump off of them. You never know whose lives might be saved by a sign with a hotline phone number and someone to listen to them on the other end of the phone.